I also experimented with something for the first time. When I give presentations, I usually use presentation mode (in Apple’s Keynote app).

I usually have facts, figures, or phrases I want to say in a specific way, or a reminder to do a transition to the next topic, and those don’t always stick in my head. So I dump them into the presenter notes, and can glance at them during my presentation.

Guess what? Once in awhile, that doesn’t work. For example, at this particular conference the A/V guys ran all presentations in the back of the room at the sound booth. No HDMI or VGA cable running to the podium.

So my laptop had to be at the back of the room. With my notes. Bummer!

What to do? Jason reminded me that Keynote has a mobile app. One feature of that app allows you to remotely run a presentation from your iPhone or iPad. You just have to pair the mobile device to the laptop. Then the phone acts as a remote to advance slides.

And more importantly, it shows all presenter notes. Problem solved!

So the night before my presentation, I quickly set it up, practiced once, and decided to use it the next day.

It worked “mostly” well! I say “mostly.” Not because of the devices, but because of the hotel wifi. It required re-connecting every 24 hours. I didn’t think about that the morning of the presentation, and as luck would have it the wifi on my phone decided it was time to stop working. On the next to last slide of my talk.

So I had to say “next slide please” a time or two. Otherwise, everything worked great.

Anyway – problem solved for the next time that type of awkward set up is required (it’s happened to me once before). It was also really fun to try out something new (for me). And it solved a huge issue and helped me successfully deliver my presentation.

Have you ever tried out new tech for the first time in front of other people, or started using something new because you really, really needed to? Please share!

ALA 2013 is coming up in a few days, and I want all you iPad note-takers to be prepared! For the last year or so, when I take notes on my iPad, I’ve been using iA Writer, and it works great. But I’m not really fond of the font. And I’m apparently the only one like that – iA Writer’s “beautiful design” gets mentioned a lot. But it’s not my favorite.

iA WriterÂ and Byword are pretty similar. They are both popular writing apps for iOS devices. Both sync to iCloud and Dropbox if needed. Both have handy keyboard extension bars for easy-to-access keystrokes (like colons, commas, etc).

And Byword gives me a choice of fonts – so my problem was solved with Byword. Yippie!

One big difference between Byword and iA WriterÂ is the keyboard. Both have a keyboard extension bar, but iA Writer’sÂ works better for me. iA WriterÂ has punctuation shortcuts that I actually use, like dashes, colons, semicolons, and apostrophes.

Byword’s keyboard extension bar includes a LOT of cool functionality. It actually has three rotating bars, and even shows word count, which is very useful. The 2nd and 3rd bars have some punctuation, but Â â€¦ well, not what I need. No dashes, colons, or semicolons. And it includes a bunch of shortcuts that I’d never really use – things like brackets and the star key.

The deciding factor for me?

The iA WriterÂ keyboard seems to work better for me. On Byword, the keyboard looks pretty much the same as iA Writer, but it seems like the software behind the keyboard isn’t picking stuff up the same way iA WriterÂ does. With Byword, I get missed keystrokes, misspellings, and a bunch of weird auto-corrects.

WithÂ iA Writer, the keyboard … just works. The only errors I get are from me and my fingers.

So – after testing, it looks like the only thing I don’t like on iA WriterÂ is the font â€¦ and you know what? I can live with the font. I’m sticking to iA WriterÂ for now.

For more info, here are some other articles comparing iA WriterÂ and Byword:

Like iPads, and think they could work in a public space? Check this video out! I recently saw a bunch of iPads at the Delta terminal at LaGuardia airport in New York, and took a short video of them. Here’s a link to some photos, too.

Basically, here’s what I saw – hundreds of iPads in the airport terminal gates, secured to tables with a cable. Each iPad had airport info, news, games, a restaurant menu, and web access apps installed. You could order items from the restaurant via a credit card swiper beside the iPad. No signup, no waiting list – just find an empty iPad and start using it. Here’s a couple of newsÂ articleswritten about this experiment.

The only real problem I saw was one of sorta gross smudges on the iPads. Thankfully, I also saw someone walking around, cleaning the screens.

I think this type of setup could easily work in a library setting! Here are some starter thoughts on potential uses:

catalog-only computers

computer “overflow” – get out the iPads!

Simple browsing stations. Who needs PCs?

Complete mobile technology in the library – no PCs needed (with those handy self-service tablet checkout machines that were being shown in the exhibit hall at ALA Annual). Just check out an iPad, then take it wherever you want to in the library.

Out-of-the-building events

For staff, they could work nicely as roving reference tools.

Question – how does your library use iPads or mobile tablet technology? I’ll start: so far, we have some iPads that staff can check out for a learning opportunity, we have experimented with them for roving reference, and we teach a class on using an iPad. How about you?

I don’t attempt to predict stuff very often, but I think this one’s safe – I think Apple’s new iPad is most definitely a game changer.

Why? Because it combines so many things into one handy, easy-to-use device. Just watching the video about the iPad and poking around on the website a bit, you find out all that the iPad will supposedly do, including:

web browsing

email

photo viewing

watch videos (even YouTube videos)

listen to music (it has iTunes built in)

buy and read ebooks

a cool map

note taking

a calendar

Contacts list

iWork (Apple’s answer to Microsoft Office) is rebuilt for the iPad, so you have word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software

The App Store works here, too, which opens up 140,000 apps that all do different things

And of course, it’s multi-touch. So instead of having to use a mouse or keyboard shortcuts to operate the thing … you just touch the screen. I’m just amazed that Apple seemingly rolled up a Microsoft Surface, a tablet PC, a video player, a netbook, an iPod, and an ebook reader, and came out with something light, cool, and truly unique. Except maybe the name – sorry Apple, but the iPad is a silly name.

Apple could turn this thing into a student’s best friend. Instead of carrying a heavy backpack around, students could use the iPad to carry all their textbooks (assuming Apple partners with textbook companies), any multimedia they need to watch, their word processor to write papers (or they could just use Google Docs via a wifi connection), multiple ways to take notes, communicate to classmates and teachers via email/IM/Facebook/Skype/etc. And still have their favorite photos, their grand music collection, and a couple of fun games with them, too.

How about for libraries? Think Reference Desk and roving reference here. It’s the same price as a netbook laptop. But probably easier to carry around, easier to show stuff to people, easier to make the text larger for people who need larger text (you just touch and stretch the screen with your fingers to make the text larger – just like an iPhone). And has a 178 degree viewing angle, so it would work well to show stuff to patrons.

Game changer? I think so … or maybe I’m just gushing at the cool new toy. What do you think?